children of Thomas Taber: by first wife: Thomas, b. 29 Oct 1668, d. young by second wife: Thomas, b. 22 Feb 1681, m. Rebecca Harlow also by second wife: John, b. 22 Feb 1681, m. Phebe Spooner.
The scenario painted by the Taber Genealogy is feasible, but the problem is that no evidence is given to support the notion that there were two sons named Thomas. No death date is given for the first Thomas, suggesting there is no death record, and indeed, none is found in Dartmouth VR (should be p. 3:73). The birth date for the second Thomas is given by the Taber Genealogy as 22 Feb 1681 [more accurately 22 Feb 1681/82, since John's birthdate and Thomas's are the given as the same in the Taber Genealogy, but the Dartmouth record for John, which the introduction says preserved the way the original was written, with no attempts to fix errors, was 22 Feb 1681. At the time the birth was recorded, February 1681 was the month that would be called February 1682 by the modern calendar, and so this should be written 22 Feb 1681/82, not 22 Feb 1680/81 as shown on this page]. But Dartmouth VR do not substantiate this. Only the first Thomas's birth is found in Dartmouth VR (p. 1:272). There is no birth record for the second Thomas, though the birth of his alleged twin John is recorded (p. 1:269). There is, so far, no death date for Thomas giving his age at death to work backwards from. The birth date of the second Thomas would make him not of legal age when he married 4 Jul 1700, which was not common. Finally, with his wife Rebecca Harlow's birth on 27 Feb 1678 (see MD, p. 2:17]], and given a general tendency for the husband to be slightly older because he generally was expected to establish himself enough to own land or other means of support prior to marrying, one would also favor the first birthdate as the better match. Hence, this second Thomas, b. 1680/81/82, looks suspiciously like a fiction created along the way by somebody's bookkeeping error.
